Soft-member-mounting methods or apparatuses are well known, as disclosed in JP-B-5-65298 showing use of robots to mount a soft member or a weather stripping in a vehicle door opening. With reference to FIG. 10 hereof, discussion will be made as to mounting such a weather stripping in the vehicle door opening.
As shown in FIG. 10, a vehicle body 100 includes a flange 102 provided in an opening 101 in which a vehicle door is to be installed. An arm tooling device 104 is mounted to a wrist 103 of a robot. The arm tooling device 104 includes a pressure roller 106 for pressing a weather stripping 107 against the flange 102 to fit the weather stripping 107 in the flange 102. The pressure roller 106 is driven by a motor and has a rotational speed varied by a clutch connecting or disconnecting a drive between the pressure roller 106 and the motor.
Where the pressure roller 106 mounts the weather stripping 107 to a straight section of the door opening 101, the clutch disconnects the drive between the pressure roller 106 and the motor such that the arm tooling device 104 moves allowing the pressure roller 106 to free wheel on the straight section of the opening 101. Where the weather stripping 107 is mounted to a corner of the door opening 101, the clutch connects the drive between the pressure roller 106 and the motor to rotate the pressure roller on the corner at a higher rotational speed than on the straight section such that slacks in the weather stripping 107 are taken up.
As the pressure roller 106 free wheels on the straight section of the door opening 101, the weather stripping 107 can be pushed in a direction of movement of the pressure roller 106, slackening in front of the pressure roller 106.
Large slacks in the weather stripping 107 can not be taken up even if the rotational speed of the pressure roller 106 is made high when the roller arrives at the corner of the door opening 101. As a result, the weather stripping 107 can wrinkle or be lifted up. The wrinkled or lifted weather stripping 107 mounted to the door opening 101 is poor in quality and thus should be repaired or detached from and again mounted to the door opening 101, which leads to decrease in productivity of vehicles.
There is a need to enhance quality of the soft member mounted to the vehicle door openings for improving productivity of vehicles.